First Contact

Gezohu!

The handkerchiefs that Jenni gave me are extremely important, I use them tons more than I expected, mainly because I got sick at the MTC and because the Albanian definition of a napkin is this thin piece of paper that just kind of disintegrates and leaves all the grease on your fingers.

I thought I would tell those of you that are counting the months of my mission that you can count the month mark on the 5th rather than the 21st, that is how it is done when measuring the months. It's not against the beginning of your mission, but against the end, because technically our mission is only 23.5 months, not 24.

I would love some simple recipes! Elder Flack is a great cook, but I know I got pretty blessed getting him as a first companion for a number of reasons. I am sure I am going to have companions who are too lazy to make anything worthwhile. I'd like to learn better how to make some things, so please do send some simple recipes.

Story time!! After emails last P-day we headed over to a place that tons of people here say is beautiful. A place called Shirak. It is only about 4 km from the outside of Shkoder, so we hopped a furgon over there. When we arrived we were really quite disappointed, we couldn't figure out what was so beautiful about this place, it was just a little village, as trashy as the rest. We started walking up this road along the coast (it was on the big lake in northern Albania next to Shkoder) just talking, seeing what was up the road. After awhile we got pretty bored. Off to our left was a large ridge of mountains, we looked at it, and decided to climb! It took about an hour an a half to climb straight up the side. It got really steep towards the top, but when we finally reached the summit we realized how very worth it our sweating had been, you could see for miles and miles around. Albania is a country full of trash, but when you are far away it looks stunningly beautiful because you can not tell it's covered in trash. We then walked along the ridge, looking for a better way down. As we did this we found a cave, a real, random cave in the side of the mountain. Probably against better judgement, we entered. The walls were covered with thousands of these mosquito eater looking bugs we see around Shkoder a lot. We pushed forward, about 50 yards in we could see the end of the cave, and at about the right time too because we disturbed a bat that clearly wanted us to leave. We caught a few pictures and split.

Afterwards, Elder Flack told us we should just ride one of the rock slides down the mountain. I thought he was mad, or at least that he was the only one who could do it because he is a climber. Turns out it is the most fun thing I’d done on my mission, and it really is not as dangerous as it sounds. We got down about half the mountain in roughly 1 minute. It was a good day.

I am very much hoping the Assistants to the Mission President will be bringing me a package this Friday. I do not know if packages take much longer to get here than mail.

Our branch is young and struggling, as you all know. It is very interesting to go over to a members house who has missed sacrament meeting. You can tell that they missed receiving the sacrament, their whole demeanor is just slightly more downcast, less hopeful, you can’t feel their spirit coming off them as easily as you can when they have been able to partake. I do not know if it is this way with people who have been members for a long time. I've never noticed it before.
I now am really realizing the utter importance of taking the sacrament. It does so much more for us (if we take it worthily obviously) than I think we realize, it really is an ordnance of renewal for us to give us strength in the coming week. I hope that has the branch grows we are able to emphasize to people that they must come and partake of the sacrament. A number of members were baptized thinking that afterwards there did not have any real commitment to the Church, when in reality it was just the beginning!

The other Elders have a Baptismal date for later this month. Not only is that excellent, but the very cool thing is that it is going to be the first baptism of a black women in Albania!! I didn't even know there were black people here before her. She is of Libian descent, but is 100% Albanian, having been born here and lived here all her life. She has a powerful spirit, and is an extremely nice women, I think she will bring a lot of strength to the branch. Unfortunately she is very busy, having 2 jobs, but she doesn't work on Sundays, which is great, since that is the most important day. The only unfortunate thing about how busy she is is that its harder to meet with her and teach her everything she needs to hear, but she will be ready by the end of the month. How exciting!

So our house has been flooding with sewage water the past couple of days, it is really disgusting. The landlords finally have someone coming this morning. We are hoping to go home to a fixed house.

For my birthday I am buying some weights, there is a good set that is not super expensive up here in Shkoder. I am indeed planning on staying in shape while I am here in Albania! I don’t want to come home looking gross (though I’ll be coming home in the winter, regardless of how hard you try missionaries always put on some slight padding then because the body is trying to protect itself) and I don’t want to have to work super hard to get ready for the Army again. The desire is all it takes, Elder Flack and I do a good job of exercising.

I love you all very much!

God be with you
Elder Scadden